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Tearing down of Rochor Centre

The rainbow coloured public housing estate in Singapore popularly known Rochor Centre will soon disappear from the cityscape. Demolition of this centre began in the morning hours of June 26 and is expected to take around ten months to be torn down floor by floor. The day witnessed heavy rainstorm bit it was not enough to stop the former residents turning up to the location to see their home of memories bowing down in the name of infrastructure development.

Rochor centre served as a residential and retail complex with more than 180 shops and 560 households. It will now serve as a joint connecting north region of the island to the city centre. The corridor extending up to 21.5 kms was planned to be an expressway but based on its structure and location, it is termed as first integrated transport corridor of Singapore.

The Land Transport Authority (LTA) is planning to demolish the green, blue, yellow and red building floor by floor starting from top floor. Among many former households, there was an 85-year old man who was looking continuously towards the Centre sitting at the entrance stairs of Fu Lu Shou Complex. On being asked how he feels, he replied identifying himself as Mr. Tan, “There is nothing to feel sad as the nation is progressing on infrastructure front, but it feels at times that we were chased away!”

Another China based young women adjusting her 360-degree camera carrying a sling bag and umbrella told that she has been in Singapore since her secondary high school days and attained her graduation degree from National University of Singapore. On being enquired about her memories with this place, Yuan Yi said, “Shop named Eason music used to be my go-to spot for Chinese orchestra collection in college. The rain is heavy but is adding to the atmosphere.” Yuan who is a producer at company called Hiverlab continued, “I can’t believe that this building will be gone forever but I hope I can document this demolition process!”

Aik Sun Demolition and Engineering has been provided with the tender contract of demolition and the agreement is to demolish it in ten months which are expected to get over in April 2019. The building is huge and should not disturb the neighbours for which the use of smaller sized excavators has been decided. Mr Tay Hing Heng, demolition specialist at contractor Rock Busters emphasized on importance of demolishing floor by floor by converting few walls as ramp to transport the machineries.

The site has been equipped with all relevant machineries along with noise barriers, dust screens and informative signs to redirect pedestrians.